FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
User ID: 1175
It's possible that it was originally a subscriber-only post but then he unpaywalled it, though I've never known Freddie to do that.
Well, that just seems preposterous. Hamas's strategy of employing Gazan civilians as human shields by stashing combatants and armaments in civilian facilities (hospitals, schools, mosques etc.) is well-established. The only reason they employ this strategy is because they know that the IDF (and the broader Israeli population, by extension) assigns a value to the lives of Gazan civilians which is greater than zero, and would prefer not to kill them if possible.
Fine, fine, you'll say the IDF doesn't really care about Gazan civilians' lives, but know that it would be bad optics in the eyes of the international community to kill them willy-nilly. But assigning a greater-than-zero value to the lives of Gazan civilians for reasons of pragmatism and realpolitik (as opposed to "high-minded European notions about the intrinsic value of human life") is still assigning them a greater-than-zero value. It's telling that this is an asymmetric strategy: no Hamas leader or foot-soldier is going to hesitate before attacking an Israeli military installation out of concern for civilian collateral damage.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
8hr ago
I'm going to have to plead "revealed preferences".
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
9hr ago
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
10hr ago
I, for one, do not assign zero moral value to members of my outgroup. While I accept that the average Israeli is probably more likely to take seriously accusations of rape made against Palestinians than accusations made against Israelis – I do nonetheless believe that the modal Israeli assigns greater moral value to members of his outgroup than the modal Palestinian does. Call me a Zionist shill if you must, that's what I believe.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
22hr ago
Rape denialism is inexcusable coming from anyone, but particularly hypocritical coming from individuals whose catchphrase was "believe women" for the better part of a decade.
If you'd prefer me to amend my comment to "Numerous witnesses independently witnessed Hamas squaddies gang-raping women on October 7th; Hamas squaddies filmed and publicly disseminated footage of them assaulting, humiliating and sexually torturing women; but they did not, strictly speaking, livestream themselves gang-raping women", then fair enough. But this seems like just about the most macabre kind of hair-splitting I've ever encountered.
Even then, if a group of armed men surrounded a woman and collectively forced her to undress before humiliating and sexually torturing her, I think few people would object to characterising that as "gang rape", even if technically none of the men forcibly penetrated the woman with his penis. Likewise if the men in question were wearing GoPros on their person, I think few people would object to characterising that as "a group of men filmed/livestreamed themselves committing gang rape", even if, again, none of the men forcibly penetrated the woman with his penis.
But why am I even saying any of this? You've preemptively decided that any factual claim that makes Hamas look bad and portrays Israelis as victims is "Zionist propaganda". You've preemptively decided that any organisation advancing any factual claim that makes Hamas look bad and portrays Israelis as victims is therefore a sinister Zionist organisation. I might as well argue with a brick wall.
I ask for evidence of this happening and it turns out that, in fact, you have no such evidence whatsoever. No such livestream exists. You lied. You made it up. Why did you do that?
If this specific claim turns out to be untrue and you want to accuse me of having been duped by Israeli war propaganda, then go for it. But I didn't "make up" this claim. It did not originate with me.
you're going on a hysterical rant about things I never said.
Dude, it's right there. You said "Also with the possible exception of the abuse/mocking/burning of female corpses basically all of these accusations would hold true if you replaced "Hamas" with "Israel"."
I mean, if Hamas livestreamed themselves committing gang rape then surely a link to it exists somewhere, right?
There is the film Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre, which edits hundreds of hours of Hamas-produced footage into a 47-minute documentary. According to people who've seen it, some of the Hamas-captured footage implies sexual violence has recently taken place. Netanyahu defended the decision to publicly screen the footage on the grounds that, without doing so, people would deny or downplay the extent of Hamas's brutality. Sadly, it didn't have the desired effect, if your reaction is any indication.
In addition, the Civil Commission maintains a more extensive archive of footage, although for obvious reasons it isn't a publicly accessible database. They are planning to give access to academic and legal professionals over time. I look forward to the day when several of these individuals watch the footage, confirm that the linked report described its contents accurately, and get immediately dismissed as "Zionist shills" by you and your ilk.
Andrew Fox claims to have seen footage which was not included in the aforementioned documentary:
Back in 2024, with a visiting group of senior military officers, I was shown part of the sexual crime evidence discussed in the Civil Commission report released today; evidence far beyond the infamous 47-minute reel. It remains the most horrific thing I have ever seen in my life, which to this day causes my voice to hoarsen and the hair to stand up on my arms when I talk about it.
There are things that permanently alter your sense of what human beings can do to one another. There are images and details that do not fade, because they are not merely violent; they are desecrations. They are crimes against the body, against the dead, against the living, and against the idea that humanity has limits... the rapes are what [Hamas] are most desperate to deny. Every time I have written about what I have seen, the response has differed from the usual abuse. The bots arrive in far greater numbers. The replies are filled with smears, mockery, deflection and outright denial. The purpose is not persuasion. It is intimidation. It is to make bearing witness so exhausting, so poisonous, and so socially costly that people stop doing it.
But I know you've already dismissed his account as lies.
entirely secondhand Israeli war propaganda reports
I have a very hard time believing that the only reason you don't believe this report is that it's "secondhand information". I don't think you would immediately change your mind and accept that Hamas really did what they're accused of doing if you personally spoke to the people who attended Nova and confirmed to you the things they'd witnessed.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
read my blog already Ft!
My bad, I've been putting it off. I assure you I'll read at least one post before the day is out.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
I thought of using GIS alright. Is it free?
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
I hate e-readers, reading books on them feels like work. I'd never buy two phones at the same time, but hanging on to my old phone while it's still working makes sense.
I wasn't critiquing the Grey Lady in particular here. I very much doubt the author of this specific article would dispute that Hamas committed sexual violence on October 7th. I'm critiquing the double standard among woke leftists, who demand exhaustive beyond-reasonable-doubt proof when a member of their in-group is accused of sexual misconduct, but when a member of their out-group is accused of sexual misconduct, even hearsay is deemed sufficient to condemn them.
None of this requires you to support Israel, think Israel isn't committing a "genocide", think Israel isn't a settler-colonial apartheid state, think the Palestinians don't have a legitimate grievance etc. You're welcome to think the IDF is just as bad (or even worse) than the people they're fighting. You can sympathise with the Palestinians (even sympathise with Hamas) while acknowledging that Hamas committed acts of unspeakable cruelty on October 7th. But you do, in fact, have to acknowledge that Hamas committed acts of unspeakable cruelty on October 7th. That part is not open for debate.
And it is absolutely not a strawman to say that some woke leftists, pro-Palestinians or Joo-posters will deny to this day that Hamas committed any sexual violence at all on October 7th. I have personally met these people. I may have been dunking on a weakman, but I was not dunking on a strawman and I quite resent that accusation.
I feel like it's really not that difficult to make the cognitive leap from the assertion in one sentence "Hamas filmed and distributed themselves committing acts of sexual and gender-based violence", to the inference that the word "assault" in the following sentence is referring to sexual assaults. In fact, it's such an obvious cognitive leap that I think not making it could only be the product of motivated reasoning.
But if you insist on me excerpting other relevant portions of the report for you, you lazy sod, then so be it:
From the section "key findings":
Hamas and its collaborators used sexual torture to maximize pain and suffering. Victims endured brutal acts, including burning, mutilation, rape, restraining, forced insertion of objects into the genitalia, shootings to the faces and genital area, killings and abuses in front of family members, and executions.
Hamas and its collaborators inflicted SGBV in multiple locations, employing recurring patterns of abuse. The Civil Commission identified at least thirteen patterns of abuse across multiple sites, including: 1) Rape, gang rape, and other forms of sexual assaults; 2) Sexual torture, including intentional burning and mutilation; 3) Deliberate shootings to the head, face and genital area; 4) Killings and executions following or committed in conjunction with SGBV; 5) Postmortem sexual abuse, humiliation, and desecration of bodies; 6) Forced nudity and exposure; 7) Handcuffing, binding, and restraint of victims; 8) Public displaying and parading of women and children; 9) Abduction of mothers and children; 10) SGBV inflicted in the presence or near vicinity of family members; 11) Filming and digital dissemination of SGBV, including use of social media to document, glorify, and amplify the atrocities; 12) Threats of forced marriage; 13) Rape and other forms of sexual violence against boys and men.
From the section "operational preparation prior to the attack":
A wide range of documentary material seized from the bodies and homes of perpetrators, and recovered from October 7th sites, demonstrates that the attacks were not a spontaneous outbreak of violence but rather were planned and rehearsed with specific instructions to kill, kidnap, and humiliate civilians.107 The Civil Commission has reviewed extensive operational materials, notebooks, checklists, maps, phrasebooks, and tactical guides that guided perpetrators on how to enter civilian communities, how to control victims, and what commands to use in Hebrew during abductions... These materials further include Arabic‑to‑Hebrew phrase lists with imperatives and humiliating commands (for example, commanding victims to “take off your pants/take your clothes off,” “lie down,” “spread your legs”), as well as kits containing zip ties and other materials to physically restrain victims.
The word "rape" appears 309 times in the report, 29 of those as part of the phrase "gang rape". The section "Rape, gang rape, and other forms of sexual assault" is five pages long, while the section on "filming and digital dissemination of SGBV" is three pages long. None of this is open for debate.
Also with the possible exception of the abuse/mocking/burning of female corpses basically all of these accusations would hold true if you replaced "Hamas" with "Israel".
It is so, so tiresome how you immediately pivot to arguments-as-soldiers mode. You demand evidence that Hamas did the things I claimed, I provide it, and you instantly pivot to "well Israel is just as bad so who cares". We weren't debating whether Israel was just as bad as Hamas, or who is worse: we were debating whether Hamas really did the things they filmed themselves doing and disseminated. It is a simple factual question, not an ethical one.
Hard to avoid the conclusion that there's a double standard being applied here.
Only if your worldview depends on you failing to understand what's right in front of your nose. The rape, gang rape, sexual abuse, torture and humiliation committed on October 7th was exhaustively documented, perhaps an outright majority of it by the perpetrators themselves. If this Palestinian man really was raped by a dog belonging to the IDF, that event was not exhaustively documented by anyone, including the alleged perpetrators. Joo-posters have no trouble believing that the dog-rape occurred, but it seems no amount of documentary evidence will persuade them that Hamas really did the things that they filmed themselves doing and proudly disseminated. (By contrast, if the IDF filmed this Palestinian man being raped by a dog and distributed it on their own channels as a form of psychological warfare against Hamas and the Palestinians, I would have no trouble believing that it really happened. I'm not the one with the double standard.)
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
Rob Henderson introduced me to George Mack's suggestion of fixing bad smartphone habits by having two phones: the Kale phone and the Coke phone. Rather than using one phone for everything, uncouple the good from the bad. Your kale phone only contains Google Maps, notes and Kindle, and only 2-3 people know the number. Your coke phone has Facebook, Instagram, Xitter, WhatsApp etc., and you give this number out to anyone you want to. You bring your kale phone with you everywhere but make a point of only looking at your coke phone at designated times.
I bought a new phone recently and I'm experimenting with a variant on this. While my new phone does have WhatsApp and I don't have two phone numbers, I've made a point not to install Instagram or Facebook on it and have disabled YouTube (but not uninstalled – think I need to enable developer options or something). My new phone comes with me everywhere, while I leave my old phone (which has Instagram, Facebook etc. installed on it) at home. It's been less than a week but so far I think it's helping, and I'm feeling less of a compulsion to look at my phone on public transport.
Now all I need is to find a way to block this site from my new phone.
Here (Ctrl-F "Filming and digital dissemination of SGBV"):
A highly disturbing and recurrent pattern documented by the Commission is the extensive use of digital technology and social media, particularly perpetrator-generated images and videos, to document, glorify, and amplify acts of SGBV [sexual and gender-based violence]. Perpetrators documented themselves during the attacks, including while assaulting, humiliating, abducting, and killing women and desecrating their bodies.
Footage circulated by Hamas and its collaborators depicts women and girls being violently dragged, humiliated, and abducted; female corpses being abused, mocked, or burned; and female hostages being tormented, abused, taunted, or humiliated on camera.
Some time ago, I had an idea for a project in work. As other more pressing matters kept coming up, I never had time to pursue it, but I have some downtime now and would really like to look into it.
The idea I'm describing is listed in terms of progressive utility and difficulty, where each "step" is more useful and more difficult than the preceding one, but even step 1 would be useful in its own right.
My company's core demographic is old people. The most recent census in my country was in 2022, and they've released the figures for the mean age in each district (I'm not sure if it's done on the basis of postal or electoral districts: I'll just say postal districts for convenience). Step 1 would be to produce a map of the country broken up into postal districts, with colour-coding for mean age (say, a gradient running from light blue to dark blue for young to old). Hovering one's cursor over a specific postal district would produce a pop-up window displaying the mean age in that district.
Step 2 would be the above, but using a weighted average age rather than a raw average. A postal district with a mean age of 60 but a population of 1,000 is more valuable than a postal district with a mean age of 70 and a population of 100. This might be as simple as multiplying mean age by population to get the districts' cumulative age in man-years. Hovering one's cursor over a specific postal district would produce a pop-up window displaying the mean age in that district and the population.
Step 3 would be the above, but incorporating population density. If two postal districts have the same mean age and population, but one is twice the area of the other, the higher population density should be reflected in the colour-coding. (Cumulative age in man-years)/(area in km2) = weighted pop. density. Hovering one's cursor over a specific postal district would produce a pop-up window displaying the mean age in that district, the population and the area and pop. density.
My company operates numerous branches across the country, and scraping the coordinates of these branches from Google Maps would be trivial. Step 4 would be adding a layer to my map of the country with a binary "Does this postal district already contain a branch?" This would look like a patchwork of postal districts in which those containing a branch are solid red while those without a branch are solid white. On top of the red-white layer, there would be a translucent layer in a different colour (perhaps with some kind of pattern, like diagonal lines) indicating the mean age.
| Contains a branch | Doesn't contain a branch | |
|---|---|---|
| Younger population | Red background overlaid with light blue diagonal lines | White background overlaid with light blue diagonal lines |
| Older population | Red background overlaid with dark blue diagonal lines | White background overlaid with dark blue diagonal lines |
The idea is that postal districts with an older population but which don't currently contain a branch would immediately jump out visually.
Step 5 is where it gets complicated. Instead of a binary "does/doesn't contain a branch" layer, we'd have a second gradient (white to red) displaying the mean distance for someone living in that postal district to their nearest branch. This would be as simple as specifying the coordinates for the centre of a given postal district, then calculating the crow-flies distance from that point to the nearest branch (in practice: calculating the distance from the centre of that postal district to every branch and returning whichever distance is smallest). Hovering one's cursor over a specific postal district would produce a pop-up window the mean distance to the nearest branch (and the name of that branch), in addition to that district's aforementioned metrics.
| Close to a branch | Far from a branch | |
|---|---|---|
| Younger population | Red background overlaid with light blue diagonal lines | White background overlaid with light blue diagonal lines |
| Older population | Red background overlaid with dark blue diagonal lines | White background overlaid with dark blue diagonal lines |
Again, the idea here would be that postal districts containing an older population and which are quite a distance from their nearest branch would immediately jump out at the user.
Step 6 would be importing anonymised customer data from our CRM, assigning it to its postal district based on the customer's address, and subtracting that from the weighted average specified in step 2. The idea here is that the gradient of young to old people in a specific postal district should exclude existing customers: we're looking for older people who've never bought from us before. Hovering one's cursor over a specific postal district would produce a pop-up window displaying the population of that district after excluding existing customers, in addition to all the aforementioned metrics.
Step 7 would be the above, but incorporating our customers' ages and subtracting them from the mean age. If a specific postal district has a population of 1,000 and its mean age is 65, then the combined age in man-years in that district is 65,000. But supposing that district contains 200 existing customers whose mean age is 70, meaning their combined age is 14,000. Ergo, the mean age of people who in that district who aren't existing customers shortens to 63.8. Hovering one's cursor over a specific postal district would produce a pop-up window displaying the mean age in that district once those of existing customers have been excluded.
Step 8 would be allowing the user to hide either or both of the gradient layers described above.
Step 9 would be adding interactive binary toggles, such that e.g. postal districts which already contain a branch would be greyed out.
Step 10 would be allowing the user to filter on the basis of editable text fields. If a user wants to hide any postal districts where the mean age is under 50, or in which the population density is less than 2,000/km2, those postal districts will be greyed out.
The deliverable would ideally be something that can run in a browser, but if it has to be a self-contained executable, so be it.
Limitations: I can't code, lol.
I can envision how I'd make part of this: it's not difficult to create a CSV file containing a list of postal districts, the mean age, the population (thereby calculating the cumulative age), the area (thereby calculating the weighted population density), the coordinates for the "centre" of that postal district and so on. Nor would it be difficult to create a CSV file containing a list of branches and their coordinates, then using an Excel formula to calculate the distance from the centre of each postal district to each branch, and return whichever one is lowest. I can likewise envision exporting a table of customers who've bought from us in (say), the last four years, their addresses and their ages, then writing an Excel formula which will assign a postal district to each address, then calculating the total number of existing customers in that postal district and subtracting that number from the total population. Likewise for customers' ages.
But beyond that, I'm fairly stumped. I haven't the first clue how to create an interactive map of the country.
Based on the above description, do you think it would be possible to accomplish it via "vibe-coding" (a term I admit I still don't fully understand)? If so, what would be the best AI agent to accomplish it.
New Year's resolutions check-in:
- Posted my eleventh blog post of the year last Thursday (technically a few minutes after midnight). Expanded from a comment I posted here in response to @ThomasdelVasto looking for guidance on dealing with depression – thanks for the inspiration.
- Went to the gym three times last week. On Wednesday I just did some core exercises which I found here. Friday was squat and overhead press. On Saturday, I decided to warm up with some stretches and core exercises before deadlifting. During deadlifting I used my belt (having not used for the last few weeks), then for good measure I did some stretches afterwards as well. This seemed to work: my disc isn't bothering me as much as it was. Yesterday I did a 5k run on my lunch break, planning to go to the gym this evening. Can deadlift 1.84x my bodyweight for 3 reps, squat 1.2x for 7 reps and bench press .87x for 6 reps.
- Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st.
How goes it, @thejdizzler, @self_made_human, @bird_cromble and @falling-star?
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
I assume you meant to reply to me. Thanks for the suggestions, I do want to ask someone in the gym to check my form. On Saturday I went back to using my belt (having not used it for the past few weeks) and didn't experience any issues on the day or the day after.
That's all I was looking for, thank you.
@RandomRanger's gloss was highly misleading: he made it sound as if it had been established beyond reasonable doubt that this soldier had raped a Palestinian prisoner, but that this revelation hadn't gotten in the way of his becoming an Israeli celebrity. Whereas according to this article, the investigation is still ongoing, and far from being widely admired, the soldier claims he decided to break his anonymity after being publicly shamed and criticised by an Israeli woman for what he allegedly did.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
The claim that a specific IDF soldier is known to be a rapist AND a celebrity in Israel who appears on TV shows does strike me as an inflammatory one, yes.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
The human Israeli soldiers are rapey - recall the protests and rioting when the Israeli govt briefly tried to arrest some of its soldiers for raping prisoners. Apparently the rapist is now a celebrity in Israel, appearing on TV show
See what the comment you're replying to said: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. See also the rules: "Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be."
Hamas livestream themselves via GoPro gang-raping Israeli women on October 7th, numerous Israeli women independently report rape at the hands of Hamas squaddies on October 7th, numerous doctors report injuries consistent with rape and sexual assault, photos are circulated of Israeli women bleeding from their groins, the UN believes Hamas squaddies committed gang rape on October 7th.
Woke leftists: "Well we don't know for sure that Hamas raped anyone on October 7th!"
One Palestinian claims that he was penetrated by a dog while IDF soldiers watched and laughed. He presents no medical evidence nor corroborative testimony in support of this claim.
Woke leftists: "OMG can you believe how depraved Israel is???!"
Hard to avoid the conclusion that there's a double standard being applied here.
And these are the same woke leftists who think that Brett Kavanaugh's career should have been derailed on the basis of an allegation of sexual misconduct (completely devoid of direct or circumstantial evidence) being brought against him three decades after it allegedly occurred.
I thought it was common knowledge that Hamas squaddies committed extensive acts of sexual violence on October 7th (many of which they filmed and distributed as a form of psychological warfare). But some people still refuse to accept this, so in the interests of proactively providing evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory my claim might be, please consult this report.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
2d ago
Given how much you appear to admire Eliezer, and how much stock you put in the Sequences, it would be remiss of me not to mention that Eliezer wrote an entire article arguing that the desire to "change one's sex" is a fundamentally incoherent one.
I am confident that there exists footage captured on October 7th by Hamas squaddies which depicts them doing things that any reasonable person would characterise as gang rape. If the full database of footage is made available for public consumption (as some Jews are already demanding) and it turns out that no footage meeting that description exists, I promise to eat my words.
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